


At one in the morning, on a Saturday night

by TeaHouseMoon



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: British Museum, Case Fic, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Johnlock - Freeform, Johnlock Fluff, Johnlock Gift Exchange, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Minor Original Character(s), Original Character Death(s), PLEASE DON'T READ IF SUICIDE IS TRIGGERING TO YOU, bbc sherlock fan forum secret santa challenge, sherlock and john investigate, suicide of a minor character, westminster bridge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 12:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5743633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaHouseMoon/pseuds/TeaHouseMoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock investigates what appears to be a suicide, but there's more than meets the eye.<br/>In the end, sentiment doesn't have to hurt...</p>
            </blockquote>





	At one in the morning, on a Saturday night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nakahara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakahara/gifts).



> This is my second entry for the BBC Sherlock Fan Forum Secret Santa Challenge.
> 
> The prompt was: Wine, Westminster Bridge, Elgin Marbles, Violin, Chemistry. 
> 
> This is my very first attempt at a Casefic - please employ as much suspension of disbelief as you can while you read as I did research, but I am no expert in police procedures!

  


The way onlookers had described the jump, there had been no hesitation, or doubt. Alexander Danailov had just quickly, quietly, coldly climbed the fence of Westminster Bridge at one in the morning on the 28th of a freezing December and thrown himself off, and into the murky, unforgiving waters of the Thames.

Sherlock watched Lestrade give instructions to his officers about where to place the barriers, watched him scratch the back of his head with the look on his face he always had when he felt sad and helpless toward the victim. Sherlock wanted to tell him to stop already, because the dead man was beyond help now anyway.

“It’s not a suicide,” Sherlock announced, frowning in anticipation of the protests his statement was about to receive.

“But he was here on his own – and people saw him jump-“

“At one in the morning, on a Saturday night, the only people who saw him are three idiots who not only were stupid enough to go out to a club, but also decided to risk freezing to death out on the dock on the Thames because they absolutely had to have a smoke,” Sherlock interrupted Lestrade, firing off his words in lightning-quick succession while pointing with his index finger down to Westminster Pier. “Nobody else. And as we know, the three idiots weren’t completely sober, either.”

As always, Lestrade accepted his tirade without protest, only with a nod. Next to Sherlock John cleared his throat, furrowing his brow and shivering a little in his jacket.  
He’d had to pluck himself out of bed to follow Sherlock when Lestrade called.

“Let me have what you found,” Sherlock said.

“They’re examining it now – it isn’t clear if-“

Sherlock looked into Lestrade’s eyes, made him shut up. “ _Let me have it_.”

The agent who brought the phone over to Sherlock didn’t look at him in the face. Sherlock could read annoyance in his movements, but he ignored him as always – of course ridiculous Scotland Yard trainees would rather spend ten hours trying to find one clue than hand the thing over to Sherlock and let him find the solution in a tenth of the time.

The iPhone’s screen was cracked, but the damage was months old and had not occurred that night. The phone had been dropped, not thrown; as he swiped with his thumb on the screen, it went straight to a text draft – no code lock.

“There’s a text – _Elgin Marbles_ ,” John read over his shoulders. “Who was he sending it to?” Sherlock’s leather glove clad thumb tapped on the side of the phone, a tick of excitement.

“Nobody.”

“Bloke worked at the British Museum,” Lestrade explained.

“Maybe it was a note he was writing and then he forgot about?” John continued, gesturing with his hand.

Sherlock blinked. He bit his lower lip, deep in thought, the clogs of his mind slotting together already.

“No. It was a note for us. He left it on purpose.”

John turned towards him, looked from the phone to his face, and back. The yellow lights from the bridge made his frown look even deeper.

“Did he leave a message – at the British Museum?”

Sherlock clicked on the phone, made sure the text was frozen into a screenshot.

“No. The text _is_ the message,” he corrected. He suddenly looked impatient, and he thrust the phone towards Lestrade, wiggled it a bit to urge him to take it back. There was no time to lose.

“We need to go to the British Museum _now,”_ he announced, turning on his heels and starting towards the other end of the bridge, coat billowing behind him.

“Sherlock, but what if it’s just a suicide-“

“It’s not _just a suicide_!”, Sherlock’s voice boomed over Lestrade even as he was leaving. “I just need to prove it.”

 

***

“I suppose Mycroft has already ordered some poor bastard to open the British Museum for us.” John’s tone was in between amused, and reluctantly irritated at having to give up sleep for yet another night. Sherlock turned towards him; John did look exhausted. The cab slowed down to halt at a red traffic light, and Sherlock pulled out his phone to check his texts.

“They’re waiting for us,” he said simply as a way of confirmation.

“Does your brother _ever_ sleep,” John asked, and Sherlock bit the inside of his lip. John was wondering out loud more than actually asking, but Sherlock humoured him all the same.

“Not if he can help it.”

At past three in the morning in the middle of the Christmas holidays the streets were blessedly almost empty, and so they managed to get to their destination in a fairly brief amount of time. As the cab dropped them off and Sherlock climbed out, ready to stride into the entrance and up the stairs to the museum, John caught up with him, gingerly grabbed his wrist with a firm, if cold, hand.

“Hey,” he said, tugging a bit when Sherlock slowed down but did not stop walking. “Are you okay?”

His voice was concerned. Sherlock met his eyes briefly, nodded at him in the darkness. “I’m fine.” He was not entirely sure John believed him, but then again, he wasn’t entirely sure why he was asking, either – John tended to worry too much sometimes, and even more so now that they’d relationship had evolved from flatmates to…lovers? Partners?  
Sherlock looked down, remembered things were different now, and offered John a small smile. It worked; John let his wrist go, and followed him without protest.

 

The halls of the museum certainly seemed different without the chattering and distraction coming from the groups of tourists that usually swarmed them. Not that Sherlock visited much – in fact he believed the last time he’d been was during a school trip. But at night, and deserted, the whole place had an aura of mystery and solemnity that disappeared completely during the day.

The room were the Elgin Marbles were held looked immense, all white and grey; Sherlock almost expected their whispering voices to echo. He was acutely aware of the clacking of his heels as he walked quickly over to the engravings, which were majestic, almost eerie in their stillness. He wasted no time in scanning each of them with his eyes, walking from one to the other, while John, Lestrade and a handful of confused-looking Scotland Yard officers trailed behind him.

“Perhaps he’s left something written down,” John tried, looking around, hands clasped behind his back.

Sherlock bristled. “No, there’s nothing. I’ve already checked.”

“Maybe there’s a clue in one of the marbles? In a scene?” It was Lestrade’s turn.

“Really, Lestrade. Don’t give people that much credit, it only leads to disappointment.”

“What do you-“

Sherlock stopped, turned around to face the Inspector.

“What I mean is that this guy was one of the guards here. What I mean is that he sat here, day after day, looking bored and probably thinking about, I don’t know, his mum’s roast dinner, the new stupid reality show on telly – _not_ actually about what’s in this museum.” He bristled again. “He was moronic enough not to have bothered in school and therefore he knew nothing about history or even just about this museum, for that matter.”

“Sherlock”, John said, carefully. _You’re insulting a man who just died tragically_ , was what his tone implied. Sherlock ignored him.

Lestrade cleared his throat, gave no reply, but Sherlock could read his protest between the lines – _then why did we come here?_

He pursed his lips in annoyance. He knew his time was running out; there was nothing, really, to stop these agents from going with their first theory – that it was a suicide, plain and simple - and close the case, and then there would be a killer on the loose.  
And Sherlock loathed the idea, though due to a sort of OCD of his mind more than a real sense of civic duty.

“Who did he live with. Is his family here. What about his colleagues,” he fired off a list of questions, racking his brain for ideas.

Lestrade nodded. “He was from Bulgaria. His family lives there – they are being contacted as we speak. He had a flatmate, though he has not picked up his phone yet and was not home tonight-“ he held a hand up when Sherlock started to speak. “-We are giving it a few hours before we consider him a suspect. He may have been out for the weekend or for the holidays. People do celebrate, Sherlock.”

The gentle dig was followed by a small smile; Sherlock exhaled, irritated, but said nothing.

“We’ll gather more background on him overnight. Come to me in the morning? I will let you know what forensics say.”

Lestrade’s tone was softer. He knew Sherlock hated it when he couldn’t solve a case as quickly as he wanted to, and he knew that, to Sherlock, this particular incident was textbook compared to others he’d helped solve, and therefore even more frustrating.

“It’ll be morning soon. Why don’t we go home, meet Greg in a few hours?” John tried. He reached out with his hand, remembered at the last second that they were in public; only gestured towards the door.  
Sherlock, reluctantly, nodded.

*******

 

_Flatmate’s back. Brought him in for questioning. Has alibi, seems sound. – GL_

“Was that Lestrade?”, John asked, watching Sherlock click his phone back into locked mode, place it on the table. Sherlock only nodded.

Sighing, John stood from his chair at the table, picked up his plate and empty mug and took them back to the kitchen, left them in the sink. Turned around, inhaled deeply again.

“Listen. I know how you are when you’re on a case, but-“ he grimaced; from Sherlock’s silhouette against the bright light from the window he could clearly see that his whole body had tensed up at his tone. “-this seems to have affected you, quite a lot. Just – it would, make me feel better, if I knew…why? Or at least, if I knew that you are, you know. Okay.”

Sherlock had been scatty since they’d arrived at Westminster Bridge the night before. Sure, he’d never been predictable in terms of the way he dealt with things – and as much as it hurt to admit, John hadn’t mastered the art of figuring out the workings of his brain yet; didn’t think he ever would.

But this time? This case was not all that relevant. Sure, someone had died – but people died every day, especially in a city as big as London, for the most singular reasons; and Sherlock had never been that nervous, that tense before.

“You don’t – you don’t think it’s got something to do with…with Moriarty. Do you?” John added, really just as an afterthought – but if they were to deal with Moriarty once again he’d rather know it from very early on.

“Don’t be absurd.”

Sherlock’s tone was clipped, the movement of his hand, as he dismissed the thought, abrupt and flippant.

“I’m fine. It’s just, this is – our first case since. Since what happened.” Talking about his private life was still difficult for him, even, and especially, with the person he shared it with. “I told you though, John, that nothing can get in the way of my work.”

As if afraid of having said too much, Sherlock’s eyes rose to meet John’s, and held the gaze; John smiled tightly for a moment.  
He knew what Sherlock meant. He knew he wasn’t to take that as an insult, or even as a dismissal; he knew that was just the way his brain worked, the way it was always going to be. He’d accepted that when they finally became lovers.  
Hell, he’d accepted that the day they moved in together.

As Sherlock started to walk towards the kitchen, John intercepted him, placed a palm against his chest, gentle, to stop his progress.

“Hey,” he murmured. His tone was soothing; Sherlock let himself be stopped, and listened. “I know that. And you know I’m not asking you to – I’m not saying you should be different.”

Sherlock nodded.

 

 

His phone pinged with another text an hour later. He’d busied himself with his chemistry equipment – cleaning the microscope, scrubbing the petri dishes, something he rarely did, but he was too distracted for an experiment right now.

“It’s your brother,” John announced. He held out his hand for Sherlock to read the text out of the corner of his eye.

_Did you solve the case? I’d like to know if I requested the opening of a public building in the dead of the night for no reason. –MH_

“They must have got his coffee order wrong again,” Sherlock commented, smirking with only one side of his mouth. He picked up another brush, bit his lower lip. Mycroft always sent texts that wasted his time. He was hoping it was Lestrade instead with incontrovertible evidence about the Westminster bridge death being a murder, not a suicide.

“Shall I tell him to go back to his CCTV cameras? That little game always cheers him up,” John quipped, pleased that Sherlock seemed to be in a better mood.

Sherlock sat up.

“Oh my god.”

“What? Sherlock?”

“CCTV.” Sherlock dropped brush and dish unceremoniously onto the table, stood, grabbed the phone from John. “The CCTV, John!”

He pressed the call button, while John looked on, uncomprehending; he started talking at lightning speed a few seconds later, the person on the other end of the line having picked up rather quickly, thank God – Sherlock didn’t seem in the mood for patience.

“Lestrade, we need to go back to the museum, look at their CCTV recordings. Yes. No, we need to do it now! This was the message, that’s why he wanted us to go to that room, don’t you see? We got it wrong. Get over there, have them give you access. John and I will be there as soon as possible.”

John only had the time to grab his jacket in haste as Sherlock sprinted out of the room and down the stairs, his dramatic Belstaff and scarf somehow already on him.

 

 

 

The night recordings were the ones Sherlock was interested in. Half bent over the small monitor in the security room of the British Museum, he had to stop himself from tapping his foot on the floor with impatience when the guard on charge, a burly, tired-looking older man, fumbled with the rewind button. Stood behind him, John longed to reach out a hand, stroke a shoulder, his spine, to calm him down.

“The night before he died. Was he on duty?” Sherlock asked urgently. The guard shrugged in his shoulders as if he wanted to say he couldn't remember, but a look at Sherlock’s face made him reconsider.

“Yes. He - he did the 27th, and Boxing Day, if I remember right – I think he got out of doing the Christmas night shifts and we were all-“

“Good, check the 27th,” Sherlock cut him short. The guard gave him a look, then clicked his tubby index finger onto the mouse, into the requested recordings from the list. Focus on the Elgin marbles room, a quick rewind revealed nothing out of the ordinary: just an empty hall, a man walking back and forth, twice - Alex.

“See? All fine,” the guard said. Sherlock bit his lower lip, resisted the urge to tell him exactly what he thought of him.

“Go to the 26th.”

That recording offered more of the same empty room. But this time, when Charles appeared, he wasn't alone.

“Who's that?” Sherlock asked.

The guard had to blink a few times. “This shouldn't happen”, he said, as if that was something he could still rectify and not a recording of past events.

“Do you recognise that person,” John interceded, anticipating Sherlock’s certainly less diplomatic questioning.The guard paused the recording, zoomed in on the other man’s face.

“That's Claude. Alex’s flatmate.”

Slowly, Sherlock turned; his eyes burned into the side of Lestrade’s face. The D.I. cleared his throat awkwardly. “Start the video again, please.”

The guard clicked the mouse and the recording jumped back into motion. It showed the two men stopping in the middle of the hall, talking to each other briefly; postures stiff, both gesturing with their hands. Sherlock sighed frustratedly: the picture was too grey and blurry, the camera too far away to allow attempts on lip reading.

However, something altogether more interesting happened then: the two men seemed to calm down, and one of them – Claude, the flatmate – came closer to the other; reached out a hand, and kissed him.

“What's going on there,” Lestrade quipped, stroking his chin with a hand, arm against his chest propped over his other elbow.

The kiss went on for a few more seconds. Then, Alex resumed talking, his body language showing that the argument clearly was not over on his part. His hands still gestured agitatedly, until Claude opened his arms, throwing his own hands out in annoyance, and left, abruptly.

“Were Alex and this Claude in a relationship, that you would know?”, John asked cautiously. The guard shrugged again.

“I didn't know him that well. He said he had a fella, but I didn't know it was him.”

“Lestrade, did Claude mention anything? Anything about this?” Sherlock turned towards the D.I. once again; his tone was newly urgent.

Lestrade glanced at John.

“He didn't, no.” He cleared his throat, steeled himself. “Sherlock, the flatmate was in Oxford for the weekend. He got back this morning, we called him in straight away, poor fella didn't even had time to drop off his suitcase. And he was very upset.”

“He could be lying!” Sherlock protested. “Let me speak to him - he's probably really clever and arranged to-“

“We picked him up from King’s Cross,” Lestrade interrupted. “Sherlock. We called him this morning, he told us when he'd be arriving. Had stamped return tickets and everything.”

“But then – why would Alex leave that note – he must have been trying to tell us something. I need to speak to this other guy!”

“He isn't a suspect, Sherlock.” Lestrade sighed. “We can’t detain him, and we’ll need more evidence if we are to bring him in for questioning again.” Sherlock huffed frustratedly at that. “Look, Sherlock, “ Lestrade continued, in an obvious attempt to calm him down. “This poor soul committed suicide. It happens – it’s sad, but people sometimes just can’t cope…”

Sherlock closed his eyes, took a deep breath to hide his annoyance at Lestrade’s irrelevant explanation.  
“I need to know _why_.”

With that, he strode off. John trailed after him, an apologetic look on his face.

*******

 

Night time found John in the kitchen, sipping at a cup of too-watery tea, worriedly observing Sherlock who, stood by the window, was playing a slow, melancholic tune on his violin. John didn’t think it was intentional – didn’t think it necessarily signified Sherlock was sad, or upset; he knew the violin helped him think, and well, slower melodies were perhaps conducive to a more thorough thinking.

He took the last sip, put his cup down in the sink.

“I’m going to bed soon.”

Sherlock’s elbow stopped mid-air, on the shrill end of a note; resumed his movement a moment later. John sighed.

“Do you… do you think you’ll be long?”

Again Sherlock did not answer; this time, though, he stopped playing, just kept looking outside the window, arm that held the violin hanging by his side.  
John walked over to him. Tentatively, he reached out a hand, stroked down Sherlock’s free arm. He wasn’t rejected and so his hand stroked back up, slow, reached Sherlock’s bicep and gently tugged, made him turn around a bit.

Sherlock offered a small smile. John ignored how his eyes were still unfocused, and reached up, kissed his lips softly. Kissed him again, more firmly; once more, with a sigh, when Sherlock’s mouth opened almost automatically.

“I would really like it if you – if you came to bed with me,” John murmured low on Sherlock’s lips, holding him with a hand on his arm, the other hand sliding down along his dressing gown until it stopped just over the crease of his hips, thumb pressing a bit.

“John…”

“Please, Sherlock?” John kissed him again, embraced him more firmly.

Sherlock kissed back for a few more seconds as if he was loathe to stop, but eventually he broke the kiss all the same, turned his head to the side.

“I thought we’d left the case aside for a while. There’s nothing for us to do now.” John hated sounding whiny, but well - there _was_ nothing for them to do. And it was different now that they were together; he missed Sherlock.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock exclaimed then, taking a step back, making John’s eyes go wide. “Of course there is something for us to do. There’s always something!”

John sighed, corners of his mouth turning down a little.

“Look,” he started. “Will you tell me why this case’s made you so…uncomfortable?” He tried to keep his voice levelled – the last thing he wanted was to sound like he was judging him. “You seem very…unhinged.”

Sherlock looked at him from under his eyelashes, looked away again.

“We’re missing something, John. There’s something Alexander was telling us and that we haven’t seen.” He bit his lip. “Clearly it has to do with his flatmate. He probably thought we’d be able to read their lips – if only the museum’s monitoring equipment weren’t so woefully inadequate-“

John sighed again. “Sherlock, it just seems so very straightforward to me. People have many reasons to commit suicide, we can’t always know unfortunately. Psychological problems, work worries, even just something happening at home, with friends and family-“

Abruptly, Sherlock took another step back. His eyes went wide.

“Sherlock, what is-“

“We need to go to his flat!”

“Whose flat-“

“Alexander’s!” Sherlock said, his voice raised. “We’re letting him escape! Don’t you see? Something’s happening at their flat. We need to get there now!”

John watched him hurriedly grab his Belstaff, frowned, gaped confusedly. “Sherlock, we need a search warrant to-“

Sherlock had already dialled Scotland Yard’s internal number; had the phone pressed to his ear. “We need to go _now_.”

 

 

John wasn’t even surprised at the fact that Sherlock was in possession of the victim’s home address. Of course he’d found out, probably anticipating a situation like the one they were in now: stood in front of the building, shivering in the cold, while Sherlock’s eyes scanned the outside and the front door for clues.

“What is our plan, Sherlock?”, John whispered. His breath came out in icy clouds of condensation.

“Shh”, Sherlock interrupted. A moment later, the front door creaked, then opened; a tall, skinny, haggard-looking man appeared, a rucksack over one shoulder, cigarette already in his mouth.

_Claude._

John frowned. Sherlock smirked.  
“Going somewhere?”

“Excuse me?”, the man said, clearly startled at being addressed. He grabbed the cigarette from his mouth.

“I’m just wondering why you’re leaving, Mr Villerand.” Claude’s eyes widened at the mention of his surname. Sherlock’s mouth turned up at the corner; this was getting interesting.

“Why would I tell you, weirdo?”

“Because I’m the police. I’m just waiting for more of my colleagues to join us so they can have a nice look at your flat. A proper look, this time.”

“You’re not the police,” Claude said, but looked from Sherlock to John and back. He’d suddenly gone tense. “And I’ve already spoken to them. I have nothing to do with what happened to Alex, Jesus Christ!”

“No, no, of course you don’t”, Sherlock agreed. John’s head snapped sharply towards him. “At least not directly. But you have a lot to do with what’s going on in your flat. And maybe, even – inside that rucksack you’ve been trying to hide since I started talking to you?”

Claude looked straight at him. “Why don’t you fuck off.”

Sherlock smiled, triumphant. “Ah, no. Will wait for my friends to get here, first, if you don’t mind.”

As if on cue, two police cars appeared from around the corner. Headlights illuminated the pavement and part of the front door when they pulled up close to them; suddenly, Claude sprinted forwards, running in the opposite direction, aiming for the hallway on the corner. John dashed after him, caught up easily and pushed him to the ground, knelt on him while he trashed in vain. Three agents reached them, shouting at Claude to surrender, pointing guns at him.

Still stood on the pavement, Sherlock smiled, satisfied: Claude’s little escape attempt was even better than an outright confession.

 

“After we got him we went to search the flat. As it happens, he was stashing cocaine all over the place – between bricks in the wall? Under the floor. Almost impossible to find. We traced him back to the gang of smugglers we investigated back in June – they basically used him to take the stuff for walkies up and down the country.”

Stood in Lestrade’s office as the D.I. described their findings the morning after, Sherlock nodded, fingers steepled in front of his lips.

“He wasn’t involved in Alex’s suicide because that night he’d been in Oxford on one of his smuggling assignments. Alex was definitely on his own when he jumped,” Lestrade added.

Next to them, John cleared his throat. He looked at Sherlock from under his eyelashes.

Sherlock glanced at him. “Tell John what you found in Claude’s phone, Lestrade.”

Lestrade looked up, torn between wanting to be surprised at the fact that Sherlock already seemed to know, and knowing that it was perfectly plausible that he did.

“He had a lot of texts from Alex begging him to leave the gang. He was telling him he was worried, that he was putting the both of them in danger. Then a few texts begging him not to end the relationship.”

John looked up at Greg; Greg frowned.

“A couple of the most recent texts, Alex told him he’d kill himself, because he couldn’t take it anymore. He was very distraught, poor sod.”

“Did – did Claude reply? To the texts?” John ventured.

“He didn’t, no.” Greg picked up his coffee from his desk, took a sip. “But he was cocky enough to not delete any of them.”

“He thought he’d never get caught.” Sherlock smirked. “Which is also why he was happy to meet you at King’s Cross the night he got back from Oxford. Got him out of being considered as a suspect in the death, and made himself seem honest and clean”.

“Then why…why did Alex leave that message? On his phone, for us – for someone – to find?”

“He was worried for his family. He was paranoid they’d be targeted if – when- Claude got himself in bad waters with the gang. He wanted the police to find them but he didn’t want to be the one to tell them, even after his death.” Sherlock looked at him, and John nodded.

“So he left a clue. To the fight they’d had,” he finished Sherlock’s thought.

“Probably not the best or most straightforward clue, no. But he was panicking. He was hoping the police would connect his death to the person he was fighting with that night. Hoped they could read their lips. Like I said – not the brightest of people,” Sherlock concluded, looked pointedly at Lestrade, and the D.I. offered a sheepish smile.

“Well. There is a reason I call you.”

 

*******

 

“I thought we could have some wine tonight.”

John walked over to Sherlock, who was stood by the living room table, fiddling with his phone. He reached out, offered a full glass to him; scowled gently. Sherlock put the phone down onto the table, accepting the glass. “Sorry.”

John smiled.

“Your brother?”

Sherlock took a sip of the wine. It burned warm and fruity on his tongue.

“Yes. I felt like bragging about solving the case,” he said, allowing a little smirk to fall from his lips. John smiled back, and held his gaze – Sherlock looked away. “Even though I didn’t, really. Solve it.”

John swallowed his own sip quickly. “You did solve it!”

“I was sure it was a homicide, John. It wasn’t, as we know.”

“You solved the case, you helped find the stashed cocaine. Their investigation on that gang has just got much easier and it’s all thanks to you.”

Sherlock looked down, then away again. John reached out to place the glass back on the table, then took a step towards him so their bodies were nearly touching.

“Why – why were you so sure? That it was a homicide.” His hand went up to stroke a curl away from Sherlock’s forehead, tentative, still.

Sherlock didn't look up.

“It just didn't seem plausible. For someone to just walk all the way to the middle of the bridge, and throw themselves off. Someone who didn't seem to have had previous issues or episodes in that sense.”

John nodded; he followed Sherlock’s downcast gaze, to the hand that clasped the edge of the table. The fingers were clenching nervously.

“Then they found the phone – why would a person who's planning to kill himself leave a code word? He'd have left a letter, a message. Now we know that he wanted them to be found but he didn't want them to see him as the whistle-blower.”

John kept watching him. He wanted to touch him, stroke his hair back from his face, hold him – but he knew he couldn't. Sherlock was still sorting out his thoughts.

“The reason he killed himself though, John. I think - that's what I was refusing to see.”

“He was in pain,” John murmured. “He'd lost his partner. He couldn't cope.”

At that, Sherlock raised his gaze, looked straight at John. His eyes were red at the edges. Vulnerable.

“Is this what sentiment does to you, John?”

He’d said that in a breath. The words hung between them; heavy, charged. John wanted to gape, was shocked that he hadn't seen that in Sherlock’s attitude, in his reactions. Sentiment and feelings were something that he found hard to talk about, but for Sherlock – they were actually daunting. He'd told John many times – he’d always tried to separate himself from them. He didn't feel things that way. Sherlock’s Mind Palace, as John imagined it, didn't have room for sentiment.

John should have felt disheartened by that knowledge; but in reality, Sherlock’s behaviour throughout the whole case, even his question, now - spoke volumes.

“He – he felt so much for his flatmate, his _partner_ , that he killed himself when he lost him,” Sherlock continued. It was as good an explanation as any as to what he had tried not to see.

“Sentiment can do that to you, yes,” John started. He'd decided to do away with platitudes: they were not what Sherlock needed right now. “But, the truth is that - anything can hurt you. Shutting ourselves out is not – not the answer.”

He took Sherlock's hand in his, laced their fingers together, smiled. Sherlock looked at him; his eyes were bright.

“When you feel it's the right time, you can open yourself up to another person. And you can trust. Because that sentiment, it's not – it will not hurt you.” He kissed the back of Sherlock’s hand, his knuckles; his fingers, softly. “I will not hurt you, Sherlock.”

The words hung once again in the air. John felt them, between them – not pushing them apart, pulling them together, rather. He saw Sherlock smile, saw him look down, his long dark eyelashes skim his cheekbones and then come up again to look at him.

John pushed up a little, kissed him gently on the mouth; Sherlock exhaled, kissed back. Held John's hand, and squeezed it with his own in between their chests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this story. x


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